In the southern French port city of Marseille, a 15-year-old man was stabbed 50 times and then burned alive. The crime committed on Wednesday appears to have been due to drug-related violence, Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone said at a press conference on Sunday. He spoke of “unprecedented cruelty.” The result of the case is another violent death related to the alleged crime of a 14-year-old.
Marseille is the second largest city and also one of the poorest cities in France. Violence related to the drug trade is common here, and in recent years several gangs have fought to control the lucrative drug trade. Prosecutor Bessone said the perpetrators and victims of this violence were getting younger and younger.
In the case now under investigation, the 15-year-old victim was reportedly recruited by a 23-year-old inmate in an online network. The prisoner, who describes himself as a member of a gang known as the DZ Mafia, hired the 15-year-old to intimidate a rival by setting fire to his flat door. The young person was promised 2,000 euros for this. According to the public prosecutor’s office, the 15-year-old was found by members of a rival gang. The gang members stabbed the boy several times before setting him on fire.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, the violent act caused another violent death. After the death of the 15-year-old, the same inmate in the first criminal assignment recruited a 14-year-old youth to take revenge on a member of the so-called Blacks gang and kill him. The prisoner promised a “reward” of 50,000 euros.
The 14-year-old then hired a 36-year-old father, who had no involvement in drug-related crime, as a driver. When he refused to stay with the teenager, the boy shot the man in the head. For this he used a pistol he had with him.
With these two latest deaths, the number of violent drug-trafficking deaths in Marseille has risen to 17 since the beginning of the year. There were 49 such deaths in all of last year.